Ms Christabelle Feeney:

What we have found is that a lot of companies have taken it and are using it but have not necessarily directly engaged with us. It has worked very well, however, for the companies with which we have directly engaged, and we are building and delivering training around that at the moment. It is one thing to have the document; it is another thing to educate the managers to actually implement it. More recently, we have done this with the national lottery. There are a number of different pilots we are trying out, particularly with the training piece, to make sure that it is being implemented.

In line with what the Deputy asked Ms McGriele, we are at the very start of carrying out research on the disability confidence model that has been used in the UK. It was a great idea in theory but there were just a couple of pitfalls with it. We hope to implement something similar here but base it very much on the outcome of that research. It would not be just the digital piece, which is really good, and on which Ms McGriele and the team are working; it would look at a pillared system whereby an employer would sign up and would have to go through multiple different steps to retain the champion badge and that there would be an assessment and so on. It is just to note that it is something we are examining at the moment.